Jan. 4 TEXAS: Smuggling trial delay is granted----Appeals court gives more time to sort out procedure The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily halted the trial of a truck driver in a deadly human-smuggling operation whose possible punishment has raised accusations of racial bias. The court on Friday agreed to delay Tyrone Williams' trial so prosecutors can formally request that the court decide whether the judge can tell jurors that prosecutors ignored her order to provide information on whether they are seeking the death penalty because Williams is black. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore announced last week that she would give jurors that information if Williams is convicted and would allow defense attorneys to use the government's refusal as evidence in the penalty phase. Prosecutors have until the end of business today to file a petition asking the appeals court to rule on the issue. Williams' attorneys will have until Jan. 11 to respond. Jury selection was to have begun Wednesday. Gilmore warned in an amended order Monday that if the trial is not held on schedule, it could be delayed as much as a year. She also noted that the issues in question affect only the punishment phase, if one is necessary, and have no bearing on the guilt-innocence phase. "Given the time and expense that has already been expended in assembling and preparing the jury pool for this trial, this court's upcoming trial schedule and the nearly two-month lead time that would be required to assemble another jury pool for this case, the court believes it to be unlikely that this case could be rescheduled for trial before January 2006," she wrote. Judges normally issue sentences in federal courts, but only a jury can recommend a death sentence. "I would imagine (the judge) is seeking some reassurance that adequate measures have been in place to make sure race has not played an inappropriate role in the decision to seek the death penalty," said Jordan Steiker, a professor specializing in death penalty cases at the University of Texas School of Law. Steiker said it's better to resolve the issue now than wait to see if Williams is convicted. Williams, 33, a Jamaican immigrant from Schenectady, N.Y., is accused of ignoring the plight of more than 74 illegal immigrants as they fought to survive lethal heat in the sealed truck trailer he was towing. 17 bodies were found in the abandoned trailer on May 14, 2003, at a truck stop near Victoria. 2 more victims died in a hospital. Defense attorney Craig Washington contends that federal prosecutors chose to seek the death penalty because Williams is black. They deny it. Gilmore ordered prosecutors to explain how they decided to seek the death penalty, but they told her the information is privileged and that her request interfered with prerogatives of the executive branch. Gilmore then threatened to hold Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Roberts in contempt of court if he failed to produce a letter from Attorney General John Ashcroft stating that he was refusing to comply. The lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez, asked the judge to reconsider and reiterated the argument that Williams was the only person who could have prevented the deaths. Rodriguez refused to provide the letter and said the proper sanction would be to disallow the death penalty option rather than hold Roberts in contempt. Gilmore responded last week with her ruling that she would inform jurors about prosecutors' refusal. The government usually has great leeway in deciding when to seek the death penalty, but judges must ensure that defendants are treated equally, said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. "Ultimately, their job is to ensure fairness," she said. It seems highly unlikely that race was a factor in the government's decision in Williams' case, said Bill Allison, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He added, however, that prosecutors should show the courts the rationale behind their decision. "I don't understand where the problem is coming from," Allison said. (source: Houston Chronicle) ***************************** Federal appeals court delays accused truck driver's trial----Trial for the New York man accused of driving and abandoning a tractor-trailer during the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt is delayed following a federal appeals court ruling on allegations of racial bias. Tyrone Williams is the only one of 14 indicted defendants who could face the death penalty if convicted in a smuggling ring's efforts to transport more than 70 illegal immigrants from South Texas to Houston in May 2003. Seventeen immigrants were found dead inside the sealed trailer at a truck stop near Victoria, and 2 more died later. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Friday to temporarily halt Williams' trial so that prosecutors can formally request the court to decide whether the trial judge can tell jurors that prosecutors ignored her order to provide information on whether they are seeking the death penalty because Williams is black. Last week, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore announced she would give jurors that information if Williams is convicted and would allow defense attorneys to use the government's refusal as evidence in the penalty phase. Jury selection was to have begun Wednesday for Williams, 33, of Schenectady, N.Y. Prosecutors have until the end of business Tuesday to file a petition asking the appeals court to rule on the issue. Then, Williams' attorneys will have until Jan. 11 to respond. The judge warned in an amended order Monday that if the trial is not held on schedule, it could be delayed as much as a year. Gilmore also noted that the issues in question have no bearing on the guilt-innocence phase and affect only the punishment phase, if one is necessary. "Given the time and expense that has already been expended in assembling and preparing the jury pool for this trial, this court's upcoming trial schedule and the nearly 2-month lead time that would be required to assemble another jury pool for this case, the court believes it to be unlikely that this case could be rescheduled for trial before January 2006," the judge wrote. A law school professor specializing in death penalty cases said it's better to resolve the issue now than wait for a possible conviction. "I would imagine (the judge) is seeking some reassurance that adequate measures have been in place to make sure race has not played an inappropriate role in the decision to seek the death penalty," said Jordan Steiker at the University of Texas School of Law. Defense attorney Craig Washington contends that federal prosecutors chose to seek the death penalty because Williams, a Jamaican immigrant, is black. Prosecutors deny the claim. When ordered by Gilmore to explain how they decided to seek the death penalty, they told her the information is privileged and that her request interfered with prerogatives of the executive branch. The judge then threatened to hold Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Roberts in contempt of court if he failed to produce a letter from Attorney General John Ashcroft stating that he was refusing to comply. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez urged Gilmore to reconsider, arguing that Williams was the only person who could have prevented the May 14, 2003 deaths. The lead prosecutor refused to provide the letter, saying the proper sanction would be to disallow the death penalty option rather than hold Roberts in contempt. Last week, Gilmore ruled that she would inform jurors about prosecutors' refusal. Judges must ensure that defendants facing a possible death sentence are treated equally, said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. "Ultimately, their job is to ensure fairness," Thompson said. (sources: Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Associated Press) USA: Ruling Is Awaited on Death Penalty for Young Killers In August, 6 months after the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty, Robert Acuna, a high school student from Baytown, Tex., was put on trial for his life. The jury convicted Mr. Acuna of killing two elderly neighbors, James and Joyce Carroll, when he was 17, shooting them "execution style," as prosecutors described it, and stealing their car. At sentencing, when jurors weighed his crime against factors counseling leniency, Mr. Acuna's youth should have counted in his favor. Instead, his brooding and volatile adolescent demeanor may have hurt more than helped, and the Houston jury sentenced him to die. "They probably thought that he wasn't showing remorse," said Mr. Acuna's mother, Barbara. Renee Magee, who prosecuted Mr. Acuna, now 18, agreed that his behavior at the trial had alienated the jury. "He was very nonchalant," Ms. Magee said. "He laughed at inappropriate things. He still didn't quite get the magnitude of everything he did." Mr. Acuna is the latest person to enter death row for a crime committed before age 18. He may also be the last. If the Supreme Court prohibits the execution of 16- and 17-year-olds in a case it accepted a year ago, involving a Missouri man, the lives of Mr. Acuna and 71 other juvenile offenders on death row will be spared. A central issue before the court, which is expected to rule in the next few months, is whether the plummeting number of such death sentences - there were two last year - lends weight to the argument that putting youths on death row amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Supporters of the juvenile death penalty argue that the small number proves instead that the system works and that juries are making discerning choices on whom to sentence to death, taking due account of the defendants' youth and reserving the ultimate punishment for the worst of the worst. But a look at the cases of some of the juvenile offenders now on death row raises questions about how reliable and consistent juries have been in making those decisions. Age can shape every aspect of a capital case. Crimes committed by teenagers are often particularly brutal, attracting great publicity and fierce prosecutions. Adolescents are more likely to confess, and are not adept at navigating the justice system. Jurors' reactions to teenagers' demeanor and appearance can be quite varied. The defendants they see have aged an average of two years between the crime and the trial. And jurors may not necessarily accept expert testimony concerning recent research showing that the adolescent brain is not fully developed. The Supreme Court in 1988 banned the execution of those under 16 at the time of their crimes. During arguments in October on whether to move that categorical line to 18, Justice Antonin Scalia said the drop in juvenile death sentences was proof that juries could be trusted to sort through and weigh evidence about defendants' youth and culpability. "It doesn't surprise me that the death penalty for 16- to 18-year-olds is rarely imposed," Justice Scalia said. "I would expect it would be. But it's a question of whether you leave it to the jury to evaluate the person's youth and take that into account or whether you adopt a hard rule." Juries in capital cases involving juvenile offenders certainly place great weight on the defendants' youth. The defendants seldom testify, but jurors inspect them closely and draw conclusions from how they look and handle themselves. And the very same factors may cut both ways. Adolescent recklessness may suggest diminished responsibility to some and a terrible danger to others. The youth of Christopher Simmons, the defendant whose case is now before the Supreme Court, was such a double-edged sword. Mr. Simmons was 17 in 1993, when he and a friend robbed, bound and gagged Shirley Crook, 46, and pushed her into a river, where she drowned. During Mr. Simmons's sentencing hearing, a Missouri prosecutor scoffed at the notion that Mr. Simmons's age should count as a mitigating factor in his favor. "17 years old," the prosecutor, George McElroy, said. "Isn't that scary? Doesn't that scare you? Mitigating? Quite the contrary, I submit. Quite the contrary." Mr. Acuna had a tough-looking buzz cut at the time of the killings, said Tim Carroll, the son of the couple Mr. Acuna killed. At the trial, he looked different. "He appeared as though someone had tried to make him look 8 years old all over again," Mr. Carroll said. "His hair was all combed down, almost in little bangs." That did not sway Mr. Acuna's jury. But the youthful appearance of Lee Malvo, the teenager who participated in the sniper shootings in the Washington area in 2002, may have saved his life. Mr. Malvo, who is short and slight, wore boyish, baggy sweaters most days. Although a Virginia jury convicted him of a killing he committed at 17, it voted against putting him to death. "He's very lucky that he looks a lot younger than he is," Robert F. Horan Jr., the lead prosecutor in the case, said at the time. But Mr. Malvo is growing older, and he still faces capital charges in other states. "They're talking about letting him grow a five o'clock shadow and then trying him in Alabama or Louisiana," said Victor L. Streib, a law professor at Ohio Northern University and an expert on the juvenile death penalty, referring to prosecutors in those states. "Prosecutors don't mind delay in juvenile death penalty cases." Beyond wrestling with the appearance of youth, juries must also often balance the brutality and recklessness of much juvenile crime against young people's immaturity. Studies support the common view that adolescents tend to be reckless and do not calculate the risks and consequences of their actions as adults do. They are moodier, more susceptible to peer pressure and do not have an acute sense of mortality. The law seems to recognize this, with most states using 18 as the dividing line between childhood and adulthood in many areas, including the ability to vote and to serve on a jury. Mr. Carroll, the murdered couple's son, said a categorical rule made no sense in the context of the death penalty. "If you're going to make the argument that someone's cognitive reasoning is not developed at 17 years and 8 months but would be at 18," he said, "we should rethink whether they should be able to drive, and make split-second decisions in an 8,000-pound vehicle, or get married, or have children." When the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Simmons case, a brief supporting Missouri submitted by Alabama and 5 other states with the juvenile death penalty received particular attention. It set out, in plainspoken prose, the disturbing stories of 10 murders committed by seven young killers, all on death row in Alabama. The cases cited in the Alabama brief are in many ways typical, Professor Streib said. "The capital crimes committed by juveniles," he said, "are often classic adolescent male bizarreness, often sexual and all the more revolting for that reason." Mr. Carroll said Mr. Acuna's killings were sadistic. "The evidence given in the case very strongly indicates that he made my father kneel and shot him in the back of the head, execution-style," Mr. Carroll said. "My mother, who could not walk without the help of a walker - this fellow shot her in the side of her face and blew her teeth out all over the kitchen floor." Mr. Acuna then gave the woman time to wipe the blood from her mouth with a paper towel, Mr. Carroll said. "And then he moved in," Mr. Carroll said, "to shoot her through the brain when he thought it was time." If their youth can make teenage defendants wilder and their crimes more odious, it can also trip them up when they start navigating the legal system. According to a study of the juvenile offenders on death row by The New York Times, 56 % confessed or gave incriminating statements to the authorities. Mr. Acuna was in the minority. "Juveniles are more likely to be more compliant, more nave and less likely to believe that police do not have their best interests in mind," said Steven A. Drizin, a law professor at Northwestern who has studied false confessions by juvenile defendants. "They are more likely to confess simply to bring an end to the interview process and take their chances in court." In the case of Mr. Acuna, the evidence in the case was largely circumstantial. He was found with James Carroll's wallet in a Dallas motel. The murdered couple's car was outside, and it contained the murder weapon. Juries have in recent years been increasingly reluctant to sentence teenagers to death, and the number of death sentences imposed on juvenile offenders is now almost at the vanishing point. In 2003 and 2004, only two juvenile offenders were sentenced to death in the United States. The average annual number in the 1990's was slightly more than 10. From 1999 to 2003, according to a study to be published in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the number of juvenile death sentences per 100 homicide arrests of those under 18 dropped to 0.2 from 1.6. "Over the past five years, there has been a very strong decline in willingness of juries and judges to sentence adolescents to death," said Jeffrey Fagan, a co-author of the study with Valerie West. "The decline is greater than you would expect knowing the decline in the homicide rate, the decline in juvenile homicide arrests and the decline in adult death sentences." It can be hard to say, then, what made the crimes of Mr. Acuna and Eric Morgan, the only 2 juvenile offenders sentenced to die last year, worse than other murders committed by teenagers around the nation. Mr. Morgan was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in South Carolina during a robbery. The jury that spared Mr. Malvo's life heard many days of testimony about his difficult childhood in Jamaica and about the influence that his surrogate father and accomplice, John A. Muhammad, wielded over him. Mr. Acuna's lawyers had less to work with. "Robert wasn't on drugs, he wasn't abused, he wasn't mentally retarded or mentally ill," Ms. Acuna, his mother, said. The prosecutor, Ms. Magee, agreed that there had been nothing in the youth's personal life that would help explain the killings. Mr. Acuna's lawyers were left to rely almost entirely on his age in pleading for his life, and that was not enough, Ms. Magee said. "The crime just far outweighed the mitigating factor that he was a juvenile offender," she said. Ms. Acuna said it was hard to listen to Ms. Magee's pleas for her son's death at the trial. "Here is my son that I love and that I protect with my life," she said. "And here's a person who stands up and says, 'I'm going to do everything that I can to legally kill him.'" At bottom, Professor Streib said, only a few themes run through the 72 men on death row whose lives depend on how the Supreme Court rules on the juvenile death penalty. Most of the men, unlike Mr. Acuna, come from troubled backgrounds, and all committed terrible crimes. But that is true of many thousands of other juvenile killers. "It's not a rational process," Professor Streib said. "We can't look at juveniles on death row and say they are the worst of the worst. Some have killed entire families. Some shot a clerk while robbing a convenience store like thousands of others, and you have no idea why lightning struck in this or that case." (source: New York Times) ********************** Death penalty wanes as high court scrutinizes ultimate penalty Signs of an apparent decline in the death penalty can be found in falling numbers of executions and death sentences, in court rulings in 2 states finding capital punishment laws unconstitutional and in the U.S. Supreme Court's renewed vigilance over the ultimate sanction. Since 1999, when a record 98 inmates were put to death across the country, the number of executions has dropped to 59 in 2004. The year finished with no executions in December, the 1st time since July 1994 that a single month passed without an execution. But the falling numbers don't tell the whole story. The death penalty still has public backing and strong proponents. On Jan. 26, Connecticut is scheduled to hold the 1st execution in New England in more than 4 decades, when serial killer Michael Ross is set to be executed. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said that he would present to state lawmakers early this year a bill that would bring the death penalty to his state - one of the dozen in the U.S. without it. The measure is thought to have little chance of passage. In Virginia, long one of the nation's execution leaders, Republican gubernatorial hopeful and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore has proposed eliminating the state's "triggerman" rule, so even those defendants who do not actually commit a murder can face execution. And during 2004 the federal death row grew by about 30 %, from 26 condemned prisoners to 34. "It all adds up to a strong, dramatic shift, though not the end of the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit group critical of how the death penalty is applied. The lack of an execution in December, traditionally a slow month for executions because of the holidays, appeared to be more a fluke this year than a sign of any trend; several prisoners scheduled to die were granted stays. Death sentences have fallen since 1998, when 300 inmates received such convictions. In 2003, the total was 144, and last week Dieter tallied 130 for 2004. Because the declines in executions are small, it is hard to gauge their statistical significance. After all, had some of the executions scheduled for December taken place, the execution decline would have been negligible. "When you're dealing with numbers this small, those kinds of random fluctuations don't matter that much, especially with states," said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports capital punishment. Behind the numbers are several factors, all of them tied to new debate over the death penalty - a debate no longer focused on whether the punishment is right, but instead centered on questions of accuracy and fairness. That debate gained urgency in early 2000, when Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois, and it has continued hotly as the number of Death Row exonerations continues its steady rise. Five Death Row inmates were exonerated in 2004. Among them: Gordon "Randy" Steidl, who had been convicted of two Illinois murders, and Ernest Willis, who served 17 years on Texas' death row for an arson murder but was released after experts determined the fire was not arson. "These numbers are the result of all these things," said Dieter. "It has shaken people's confidence, and there's a hesitance going forward." Dieter and others said they believe that juries have grown wary of imposing death sentences and that judges increasingly are granting condemned inmates hearings on issues that, in the past, they may have done without. Scheidegger disagrees. He attributes the drop in death sentences, for instance, to the drop in the homicide rate. He also cites anecdotal evidence: claims by some prosecutors that fewer of the most heinous murders more likely to lead to death sentences are occurring. "If juries are more reluctant to impose the death penalty in those relatively few cases where there's a lingering question, that's not a problem," he said. State-by-state trends are difficult to interpret. Missouri, whose death chamber traditionally has been one of the nation's busiest, had no executions in 2004. One factor: the state's Supreme Court tipped Democratic 2 years ago. Ohio executed seven inmates in 2004, more than double its 2003 total of 3 and more than it has had for decades. But it, too, was a fluke. 2 death row inmates gave up their appeals and were executed in 2004. "The common perception is because Ohio had 7, something different is happening here," said Deputy Attorney General James Canepa. "We are by no means on any sort of breakneck pace in executing people." If anything has changed in Ohio it is the pace of death sentences. Since life without possibility of parole became a sentencing option in 1996, death sentences have fallen from 10 to 12 a year to 3 to 8, said Canepa. "What we've seen," he said, "are less death verdicts." In New York and Kansas, state courts ruled death penalty laws unconstitutional. In New York, where restoring the death penalty was a cornerstone of Gov. George Pataki's first campaign, the state has yet to execute a prisoner and the legislature does not appear eager to rewrite its flawed law. Kansas law enforcement officials, stung by the Kansas Supreme Court's Dec. 17 decision striking down the law, have already asked the court to reconsider. Officials may also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In many ways, the death penalty is largely a Texas matter, and until the pace of executions slows, the Lone Star State will remain the nation's leading executioner. In 2004, Texas accounted for 23 executions - more than a 1/3 of the nationwide total. Of the nation's first 13 executions scheduled for 2005, 9 are in Texas, according to Dieter and Texas prison records. But the U.S. Supreme Court appears to be keeping a closer eye on Texas - and the death penalty in general. Over the past year alone, the high court considered appeals from three condemned inmates there, and it appears to be frustrated with Texas-style justice. It is even hearing one case for the 2nd time in 2 years. "It's extraordinary what's been happening," said David Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who represents death row inmates. "What you basically have," he added, "is a fairly conservative court that has been rebuking (Texas) in death penalty cases - and by fairly decisive margins. ... The court seems to be less tolerant of things here." Still, even with the new scrutiny, Dow does not see dramatic change. "I have a sense that there's a bigger number of people interested in change," he said. "It used to be a voice in the wilderness. Now, it's a chorus of voices." Having banned the execution of the mentally retarded in 2002, the Supreme Court is considering another dramatic winnowing of the death penalty - banning the execution of juvenile offenders. That would fall in line with several public statements by justices expressing concern about how the death penalty is applied - and reflect the uneasiness expressed in public opinion polls. "Once something doesn't work, people stop using it," said Robin Maher, the director of the American Bar Association's death penalty representation project. "The public has seen so many mistakes ... it's questioning the use of the death penalty itself." (source: Chicago Tribune) FLORIDA: Judge lets prisons charge state prison inmates monthly bank fees A judge has ruled that the Department of Corrections can charge a $4 monthly bank fee to Florida's 80,000 prison inmates. The state legislature approved the fee last spring, but two prisoners and a nonprofit organization sued to block the charge, arguing that the fees were lumped into a bill that dealt with other issues, such as private prisons. Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark ruled in Tallahassee on Dec. 21 that the fee provision is "logically connected to the subject of the act because it deals with the authority to operate the Florida prison system." The fee will be imposed on bank accounts kept by prisoners and used to buy toiletries, such as deodorant, or junk food and some clothing, such as tennis shoes, not provided by the state. The Department of Corrections will move ahead with collecting the money within 4 to 6 weeks, said spokesman Sterling Ivey. He didn't know whether the fee would be retroactive. Kindred Spirits Charitable Trust, the nonprofit organization that filed the suit, plans to appeal, said Randall Berg Jr., executive director of the Miami-based Florida Justice Institute, which represents the group. Peggy Taylor, a DeLand retiree whose husband is in prison, said she lives on Social Security and can send only a few dollars at time to her husband's state-run bank account. "You have to scrape to pay your bills as it is, and when I send him money, they will take some of it," she told The Daytona Beach News-Journal. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Justices affirm conviction, death sentence After telling a judge he wanted to "accept the consequences" and would not appeal his death sentence for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriends fiance, Robert McConnell changed his mind and asked the Supreme Court for a reversal. But the justices last week affirmed McConnells first-degree murder conviction and his death sentence, rejecting his claims that the punishment was "excessive" and was driven by "passion and prejudice" on the part of the jury. "McConnell committed this murder with a shocking degree of deliberation and premeditation and without any comprehensible provocation," the justices wrote in their Wednesday decision. "We conclude that considering McConnell and his crime, the sentence is not excessive." McConnell pleaded guilty to fatally shooting Brian Pierce in August 2002 in the Sun Valley home Pierce shared with McConnells former girlfriend. When the woman arrived home, McConnell raped her and forced her to drive to California. She eventually escaped and McConnell was caught. Washoe District Judge Steven Kosach gave him the maximum - 2 consecutive life prison terms - for the sexual assault and kidnapping charges and a jury sentenced him to death on the murder charge. After the sentencing phase, McConnell filed a motion with the judge, saying he wanted to waive his automatic appeal to the Supreme Court, which occurs in capital cases. "I have caused the (victims') families enough grief already and I will not torment them any further with frivolous appeals," he said in a handwritten motion while representing himself. "I accept this sentence and wish to proceed with that punishment," he wrote. But he "eventually authorized his appointed counsel to fully brief all issues on appeal," according to the high court ruling, and challenged the sentence on several points. He argued that the states use of lethal injection was unconstitutional. He said without "codified guidelines - there is the potential for either accidentally botched executions or intentional abuse by Department of Corrections officials who could gratuitously inflict pain during the execution process." The justices rejected his claim, saying he cited no authority that deems it unconstitutional "because of the absence of detailed codified guidelines for procedure." McConnell also claimed that the prosecutor made improper remarks to the jury, that evidence allowed in during the penalty phase was "overly prejudicial, that the womans testimony was irrelevant, and that the hearing was unfair because victim impact statements referred to holidays, therefore were inappropriate." But the high court said it found no merit in his claims. (source: Reno Gazette-Journal) INDIANA: Death penalty may not be option in girl's slaying----While evidence is gathered, prosecutor says, he'll seek sentence of life without parole for suspect in Tedder case. There may not be enough evidence to seek the death penalty against a man accused in the abduction and slaying of a 12-year-old Indianapolis girl, Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said Monday. Brizzi said, at a minimum, he would pursue a sentence of life without parole under Indiana's habitual offender law for Jeffrey Voss, 39, the Indianapolis man charged in the slaying of Christina Tedder, who disappeared Christmas Eve. "There needs to be specific aggravating circumstances in order for this case to be death-penalty eligible," said Brizzi, who is expected to file formal charges today. "At this point in time, I'm not entirely sure that it does meet that eligibility." Voss appeared before a Marion Superior Court judge Monday. Authorities say he has confessed to abducting Christina -- a family friend -- on Christmas Eve after he met her in the parking lot of a gas station across from her Far-Eastside apartment complex. Brizzi said prosecutors have yet to talk with the victim's family about the possibility of the death penalty. Family and friends were gathered at a calling for Christina on Monday. Her funeral begins at noon today at Flanner & Buchanan Funeral Center -- Washington Park East. Indiana law requires more than just a murder conviction to make a defendant eligible for the death penalty. Aggravating factors can include killing a police officer in the line of duty, killing more than one person or killing someone while committing another crime -- rape, robbery, child molesting or kidnapping. Police are holding Voss on preliminary charges of murder and kidnapping. Prosecutors still are evaluating the evidence. Autopsy results will indicate whether Christina was sexually assaulted or tortured, Brizzi said. "I'm 100 % confident that he killed her," Brizzi said. "It's a question of why and how, and we're waiting for that information. We're waiting for that autopsy to figure out what his motive was, if any. "We can always file the death penalty later down the road." Since he took office two years ago, Brizzi has sought the death penalty in one case -- that of Thomas Holland, a man accused of executing 2 people during separate robberies. Holland is awaiting trial in two cases. Prosecutors across Indiana have been reluctant to seek death penalty charges in recent years. In 2004, Indiana prosecutors filed death penalty charges in 6 cases, down from 26 in 1991. Studies show that capital punishment is being used less often in this country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization providing analysis and information on capital punishment. Nationally, the center reports there were 59 executions in 2004, compared with 98 in 1999. The death penalty is expensive and takes an emotional toll on the victims' families, said Paula Sites, assistant director of the Indiana Public Defender Council. She said Brizzi is right to take his time. "I think it's a good thing for us all that they (prosecutors) evaluate a crime and the accused very carefully before they decide to ask for the death penalty," Sites said. "It's a very responsible thing for him to be evaluating the strength of the evidence and to look at it in terms of whether, of all the murders committed in Indiana, this is the worst of the worst." The Tedder family's attorney, Mario Garcia, would not comment on the death penalty. He asked that the community "remember the life of Christina as well as those who have suffered a tragic loss at such a young age." (source: Indianapolis Star)
